Title
Assemblies of protective anion exchange membrane on air electrode for its efficient operation in aqueous alkaline electrolyte
Date Issued
15 January 2015
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Bertolotti B.
Chikh L.
Vancaeyzeele C.
Alfonsi S.
Fichet O.
Publisher(s)
Elsevier
Abstract
Aqueous alkaline metal-air batteries represent promising energy storage devices when supplied with atmospheric air. However, under this condition, the air electrode shows a very short life time (i.e. 50 h of operation in 5 M LiOH at -10 mA cm-2), mainly due to the precipitation of carbonates inside the electrode porosity. The air electrode can then be protected by an anion exchange membrane on the electrolyte side. In this paper, we demonstrate that the efficiency of this protective membrane depends on the assembly method on the electrode. When a modified poly(epichlorohydrin) (PECH) network is synthesized directly on the electrode, the polymer seeps inside the electrode porosity, and a suitable interface inducing negligible additional polarization in comparison with classical pressure-assembled membranes is obtained. This protected electrode shows improved stability of up to 160 h of operation in 5 M LiOH. This performance is improved to 350 h by adjusting the conductivity and the ionic exchange capacity. Finally, the interest of interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) architecture compared to a single network is confirmed. Indeed, an electrode protected with a PECH/poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) IPN is stable for 650 h in 5 M LiOH. In addition, degradation process becomes reversible since the assembly can be regenerated, which is not possible for the bare electrode.
Start page
636
End page
644
Volume
274
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Bioproductos (productos que se manufacturan usando biotecnología), biomateriales, bioplásticos, biocombustibles, materiales nuevos bioderivados, químicos finos bioredivados Ingeniería química
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84908431083
Source
Journal of Power Sources
ISSN of the container
03787753
DOI of the container
10.1016/j.jpowsour.2014.10.079
Source funding
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Sponsor(s)
This work is sponsored by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) of France ( ANR-10-Stock-E-LIO2 ). The authors would like to thank Dr. Philippe Stevens and Dr. Gwenaelle Toussaint from EDF France for many fruitful discussions.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus